Where did Adam and Eve sin

Today we will spy through the keyhole. And the theme of today's thinking: what is the sin of Adam. But before that, one should carefully look at the biblical text and try to understand what commandments Adam received, how the Lord saw him, and what he intended for.

It is usually said that Adam and Eve received one commandment: not to eat from the tree of knowledge — this, they say, violated it. In fact, there were more commandments.

The first of these was the commandment of multiplying life: "be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth." This is the commandment that the Lord gave to people first. And it should be noted that the presence of such a commandment means that the anti-Christian argument of a person who identifies the sin of Adam and Eve with their sex life and then asks triumphantly asks: but how would people reproduce it if they had not sinned, huh? - would multiply. And the sin of Adam and Eve has nothing to do with the sex life of a person, his family life. Sin did not occur in this area.

The second commandment that Adam receives is the commandment of cultivating the land, the commandment of labor: "In the sweat of your face you will cultivate the land." There is not even sweat, but just cultivate it. The Lord introduces man to the Garden of Eden and says: keep it and cultivate it. Here is the difficulty in the Hebrew text of the Scriptures. The fact is that not only in the Hebrew language, but also in Russian, the word “garden” is a “maw of” masculine. Nevertheless, the command of God speaks of the feminine face, of the feminine kind: keep it and cultivate it.

On the one hand, the feminine being that is closer in the text is the earth: keep the earth and cultivate the earth. On the other hand, well, let's say, the rabbis believe that this is about the Torah, about the Word of God, about the commandments and about the woman, who, it is true, is not yet, her talent is ahead.

It should be noted that Adam was created outside the Garden of Eden and is introduced there.then. This is an important observation, because the holy fathers, describing the life of a person in the Garden of Eden, in the Garden of Eden, say that there was no pain, no sorrow, and so on. However, it is not necessary to transfer these descriptions mechanically to the circumstances of anthropogenesis, to the world in which man arose.That is, initially a person was isolated from the world of his origin and placed in a certain limited space. This Garden of Eden had its limits; it did not fill the whole earth with it.

So,to manis givencommandment of labor. In this work a man must go a long way. At the beginning of the biblical story about the creation of man there is such a detail: “And God said: Let us make man in Our image, and after Our likeness.” However, the next phrase in the Bible does not contain the word "likeness": "And God created man in his own image." Starting at least from St. Irenaeus of Lyons, from the second century, Christian thought distinguishes between these two concepts: the image of God and the likeness of God. The image of God is those talents that the Lord has given to man. That which distinguishes us from animals and angels. The ability to work, above all. The personal nature of our being, freedom, ability to speak, to rational thought, to love. These are the godlike features of man. But, unfortunately, a person can use all these traits for evil. We can do lawlessness, think about crimes. We can not create our sphere, but kill.And if a person, like God, directs all his talents only to good, then he reaches the likeness of God, becomes reverend.

So, the fact that we are the image of God is given to us, and we must become like God in the course of our life. That is why the commandment of labor is given. There is something that a person cannot give - himself. A person must be able to grow himself, to force his soul to work, in order to change himself in this feat. Because we ourselves know this through our life, when everything is given and nothing is achieved by work, these gifts are often destructive and deadly and not at all joyful.

So, the commandment of labor is the second of the commandments that Adam receives. And again, I note: in the Soviet anti-Churchpropagandait was argued that, allegedly according to Christianity, work is a curse. We are building a labor society, but the Church is an anti-Soviet institution, because, he says, it considers labor to be a curse and a punishment for the fall into sin. It is not true. The church considers labor a vocation of man But hard worksuch work, which is able to dehumanize a person,The church really considers it a punishment.Labor that rubs a man with his millstones and does not allow him to breathe. In the fourth century, St. Cyril of Jerusalem explained why the Lord gave the people the Sabbath: so that even on this day slaves could rest from the arbitrariness of their masters. Hence, therefore, the commandment of labor is given before the fall into sin, and after the fall it will be complicated by sorrow.

The third commandment that is given to man is the commandment of knowledge: name the animals. The fact is that for the archaic consciousness the name and essence are one and the same. Even in Latin there was a saying mimina est mimina: names are signs, signs, omens. For Old Sumer,for Egyptiancivilization knowledge of the name means knowledge of things, power over this thing

For example, in Egypt there was such a myth. Once Isis had a fight with the god Ra and decided to make him disgusting. She created some very poisonous snake and let it crawl through those fields and (auls?) Where Ra used to walk. And when Ra was walking, this snake bit him in the heel. The leg is swollen. But it was not the bite of an ordinary snake, but a conspiracy, so it worked on God. And here Ra tries to remove this damage from himself and cannot, because, according to the belief of sorcerers, only the sorcerer who made it and sent it can remove the damage. Ra is tormented and can do nothing.Then he starts calling other gods for help, they come, try, also fail. All the gods tried to help Ra, except Isis, and here Ra understands: it’s Isis. Calling her and says: "Sister, help. Help me get rid of pain." Isis says: "With joy, with joy, please. Just to make my spell work, tell me your real name." Ra understands that if he tells Isis his real name, then she will have power over him. Therefore, he, do not be a fool, calls her a different name. Isis, don't be a fool, says: "No. You didn't give me your name. Call your own." Long is bargaining. But here Ra understands how right the Strugatsky brothers say that it is difficult to be a god. It is clear that it is difficult, because a person in such a situation has hope: well, I will ache, I will ache, I will die in the end. And the gods, unfortunately, are immortal, so with this heel of the sick waddle through eternity - for a very long time. Therefore, Ra surrenders, calls Isis her real name, she uses him in a spell, the pain goes away, but Isis really has power over Ra from that time.

This is an extremely stable notion in the religious consciousness of people.For example, in the Vyatka region, in the north of Russia, Father told me such a case. At the parish of this priest there lived a man, well, an old one, of course, already now, somewhere from the mid-twenties of his birth. The twenties were interesting years in the life of the Soviet Union, somewhat similar to modern Belarus, that is, such a strange mixture of seemingly and the old way of the Orthodox and Soviet. I have a wonderful document at home: the resolution of the Krasnodar Regional Council of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, and the Cossacks at the same time, to declare holidays in the coming 1924. The line of holidays was as follows: Christmas, February Revolution Day, Easter, May 1, Trinity, Paris Commune Day, Assumption, Great October. Here is such a wonderful line of holidays.

Well and, accordingly, in the twenties, children were all baptized, continued, but they baptized a child with a normal name, and then he was also a star. Here is the star of this boy named Adolph. Such a fashion was then - to give children Komintern foreign exotic names. Twenties. He is called Adolph on the passport and is called, well, nothing.In the thirties, with the name Adolph, as you understand, life began to be uncomfortable in the world, in the forties it was simply impossible, and in the following years too. So, he had a Christian name, he was baptized, but he never called him to anyone except the priest. Why? Because he explained it this way: if my baptized name is recognized by parishioners, grandmothers, they’ll otpeut me alive. Hence, it is from this deep feeling of fraternal Christian love that he hid his name from his sisters in Christ.

By the way, it’s also a very stable thing, maybe one of the Orthodox people knows that there was no prince Dimitry in the history of the Russian Church. Tsarevich Dimitri Uglich, the last Rurikovich on the royal throne or near him, in baptism was Uar, the baby Uar. Many Russian people had secret baptismal names that were not called.

So, in the Bible, let's say, the topic: the name equals the essence, and the knowledge of the name equals the power - in the Bible this topic sounds diverse. For example, when Moses encounters a burning bush, the bush, enveloped in fire, burns, but does not burn. It is also explained - the Mother of God: the Fire of God entered into Her, the Word of God contained in Her, but She did not burn, did not disappear, and so on.

Well, after this digression it will be clear what happens on the first pages of the Bible.The Lord gives Adam a command to name animals. Ephraim Sirin in the fourth centuryasks: who in the family gives all the names? Do older family members give names to younger family members or, conversely, younger ones to older ones? Of course, the older ones name the younger ones. But the question is: who is older on our planet - a giraffe or Adam? Sure, giraffe. And this is not even that of Darwinism, but even in the biblical story. So the fact that Adam, a man, names names animals, it means the approval of the primacy of Adam.

Here begins an extremely important topic for the entire biblical narration: the topic of the challenge championship: “And the last will be the first, and the first will be the last” - Gospel words. Adam is the last creature of divine creation, he is the last to appear in the diamond chain of divine creatures. And yet, he is the firstborn of God's love. Therefore, the birthright must be his, to him passes. This topic will then sound repeatedly. Let's say Cain is the firstborn, Abel is the last son. Nevertheless, Abel is blessed by Cif, not by Cain. David is the last, the youngest of the sons, Joseph the Beautiful is again the youngest of the sons, but they are the ones who are blessed.And the apostle Peter says about Christians: you, who once were not a people, but now a people, were the last. So Adam is the last, and he must name the animals in order to establish his special place in this world.

Now further. I will tell one apocrypha, but apocrypha of high significance, status. We read this apocrypha in The Tale of Bygone Years, in the first Russian chronicle. It says that when Prince Vladimir listened to the preaching of the Greek philosopher about Christianity, this Greek philosopher told him the following.

When Adam gave names to animals, he gave names to angels also. There is no need to be embarrassed. For the Church Slavonic language, the word "animal" refers in the same way.to the angels. In our prayers of Great Compline, we read: animal six-winged seraphim.

So, all the creatures, all living creatures, Adam names the name, claiming his highest status. And here, according to the "Tale of Bygone Years", it is described as a certain more ancient legend, it is simply recorded only in the "Tale of Bygone Years", and the fall of Satan, the daymaid. When Adam called names to the angels, they all had to worship and serve him,- and this is a very important and characteristic feature of Orthodox anthropology, that man is higher than angels; the angels were given the command to serve people: “command your angels to your angels” —that among these angels was the day, I would say this: the guardian angel of the planet Earth, such is our planetary logos. Here he, too, was supposed to serve man, but then, according to the Tale of Bygone Years, he became obsessed. How am I, the highest of the angels, will I serve some bald monkey?

Very interesting story. This means that because of man, there is a superhuman war in the universe. That is, a man is so serious that even angels revolt against God happened because of him. It is worth remembering, because there is a beautiful and dangerous in its beauty Dostoevsky phrase:Here the devil is with God is borontsya, and the battlefield - the hearts of people. You see the danger of this phrase. The person in this phrase appears as just a mat, a wrestling mate, on which two athletes, God and the devil, tread, and a person is just a field, the arena of their battle. No, man is not tatami, not mate, not wrestling litter. Man is the value for which God and Satan fight each other.

The following story, which I would like to explain. Too often we say that, according to Christianity, the history of mankind began with failure: original sin. However, it is not. The history of mankind began with good luck. Adam managed to name the animals. This is not a crossword puzzle. This is a very serious thing. You see, even if we don’t know how Adam called these animals, in Hebrew or not. That's not the point. The point is not that he called a giraffe a giraffe, but a hippopotamus a hippopotamus. But the fact is that Adam did not recognize himself in any of the animals. He did not say about any of the animals: it is me.

In the development of man, of the human personality, this stage of self-knowledge through opposition is very important. "No, I'm not Byron, I'm different." It is very important in the formation of a teenager, in the formation of a people, a nation, a culture, and so on - to notice and recognize one’s difference, one’s uniqueness. So Adam did just that. He was able to understand his difference from all animals.

Today, not all people succeed. Today is great news from Russia. Did not hear? I looked at the news, I managed today. It just sounds like poetry, it's just fantastic: an exhibition dedicated to the Year of the Pig is open at the State Darwin Museum in Moscow. Seriously, this is not a joke, this is today's news number 1 from Moscow.Hello big science.

You know, we, Orthodox people, are conservatives, but when I hear such things, I want to call for the reform of the Russian language. I propose to cancel congratulations on the New Year, and on December 31 I urge radio and television announcers to express themselves as follows:Dear friends! The year of the red Rat ends, the year of the blue Pig begins, with the new reptile of you, dear comrades!

Today, quite often people associate themselves to cattle: Who are you? - I'm Scorpio. And who are you? “And I’m there, I don’t know, Kozlorog.” Here Adam escaped this astrological Darwinism. He did not recognize himself in animals, and animals did not recognize in himself. It is here that we understand the unusual detail in the structures of the biblical narrative. This is where the theme of a woman, a wife, arises. It would seem so logical to say: Adam was first created, right there about Eve, and then with animals. Not. It seems that when Adam named the names of animals, he understood the esoteric meaning of the famous song:se girls in pairs, only i am alone. That is, he felt his ontological loneliness in this world. And now he felt the need for an assistant and a satellite.

A new page in the Bible story begins: the creation of a wife.A dream is induced on Adam, here the most interesting term in the Hebrew language is tardhema, and in the Greek translation, in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the word is more familiar to you: ecstasy, ecstatic sleep. Tardema in Hebrew means not just a dream, but a prophetic dream, a dream with visions, a subtle dream in the language of the ascetic of the patristic. Adam is introduced into such an ecstatic state, and here comes the famous surgical operation, when a wife is created from his rib.

In my last visit, we have already analyzed this text? About the rib? No, really? The most interesting text, with a lot of comments, interpretations.

I happened to hear the most remarkable exegesis of this text a quarter of a century ago at Moscow State University. Students from the theological faculty of the West Berlin University came to our university. The question arose as to whom to mate with them: it is necessary to find colleagues and theologians for them. Found students of the department of atheism, decided that they are suitable for this. We had a meeting. And these, forgive, O Lord, the girls were shocked by the following statement. They are feminists. I first saw the feral grin of feminism.These feminists pleased us with a statement: it turns out that woman is the crown of creation. What does it mean that the wife is created from Adam? That man is a semi-finished product, it is an intermediate link on the way to a higher creation, namely, the woman is the crown of creation.

By the way, this has its own truth. If we strictly adhere to the biblical text, then it is Eve, namely the wife is a heavenly creature. Here is Adam - remember, I stressed? - created outside of paradise, and the wife created in paradise.

As for the non-feminist interpretation, and the scientific one, then here we have an echo, perhaps the first in the history of mankind, a conscious literary pun. This is exactly the echo of the first word game. Because the pun is not in the Bible, not in the Jewish culture, but in the Sumerian one.

In Sumer, there is the goddess Ninti, her name is translated in two ways: the goddess of life and the goddess of the rib. The fact is that in the Akkadian language, the language of ancient Sumer, the Akkadian language is a Semitic language, akin to Hebrew. Akkadian language wordhas two meanings:qing- rib and life. That is clear semantic link. The Slav will say: the belly is life, yes. And here breathing, heart, chest, rib are obviously - this is the result of this association: rib and life.

So in Sumerian language thisqing, and in Hebrew, it iswhole,whole- edge.Accordingly, this bundle of meaning began to play up even in the literature of ancient Sumer, and later in the Bible it finds its echo. But actually in the Hebrew language, as in Russian, the wordhas two other meanings. That is, an edge is yes, but an edge can mean anatomically bone and still has a different meaning — it is a certain aspect, a face. And in this sense, a woman, femininity is a facet, an aspect of human nature.

And finallyalready actuallyin terms of theology. What I have told you is a feminist interpretation, a proper scientific etymological and theological interpretation from the time of Irenaeus of Lyons, from the second century.

Here is the following linkage. Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament the events of the New Testament are represented. Two words Osip Mandelstam: "And before the lips had already formed a whisper, and the sheets were turning in woodlessness." Here is the shadow of the gospel in the law. Hence, in the Old Testament, Adam is the ancestor of mankind, in the New Testament Christ is the ancestor of the new humanity. Adam has a wife, Eve. Christ has a bride - the Church, a bride - arena. Adam's wife is created from the rib of Adam when he slept.In the death dream of Christ, His rib is pierced on the cross, and blood is poured out of the rib, with which He builds His Church, His Bride.

After Adam wakes up, he sees his wife. Yes, again, it is important to note that there is no Eve in this story, and Adam is also not. Here you should not believe the Russian translation. Neither Adam nor Eve is in this story. In the Hebrew original there is ha-Adam, that is, Adam with the article - this means a term, not a personal name of a person. And Eve appears later, Havva appears later, after the Fall, somewhere to the 7th chapter, this name appears. And in the second all the time, "wife."

So, ha-Adam, the first man, sees his wife and utters the phrase: "She will be called a wife, because she is taken from her husband." There is no logic for Russian rumor in this phrase: well, taken from a husband, why should a wife be called, why not a daughter, not a sister, not a mother-in-law, in the end? But for the Jewish reader here everything is very clear. In Hebrew the wordit is “ish,” the wife is “isha.” I suspect that from here the parochial verb "shred" as a designation of a heavy feminine share.

This is a very important statement: it is taken from isha, and therefore will be isha. Very logical.But the fact is that this is already a very polemical thesis.

That is, here I ask Orthodox people to get rid of one illusion. This biblical text tells about the first pages of human history, but the story itself appeared very late. Somewhere there, on the 1500th page of human history. Is it clear or not? Yes? That is, by this time the Egyptian pyramids were already long, by the time of Moses and the writing of the Pentateuch, the Phoenician ships had sailed Gibraltar and so on, and a lot of things happened in the history of mankind. Therefore, as it were, what kind of Augean stables should be cleared with the biblical word.

So that you understand all the beauty of this train of thought: he will be called his wife, because he was taken from her husband - a simple experiment. Take a sheet of paper, graphite it, divide it in half. Then I will call different pair categories, and you associatively try to distribute them into columns. Here is the right column, the left column. Next: good and evil, where do we write, in which column, where do we write? Good - right, evil - left, light - darkness where do we write? Light is right, good, darkness is left, evil. Top - bottom, where do we write? Top - light, good, bottom - darkness, evil, left.Male - female, where do we write? As in school years wonderful: boys - to the right, girls - to the left.

But it's not only that. Recall the ancient Chinese Taoist symbol yin - yang. And there the black half is painted over by the female half. This is not a lesson in Christian theology, Yin - Yang, we are talking about certain archetypes, about folklore, about paganism. It is precisely in paganism that the feminine principle is, strangely enough, very often identified with the destructive one. Suffice it to recall Kali, the Indian goddess of death.

So here is what the words in Hebrew- single-root, crosses out all possible speculations on this topic. That is, in Jewish culture, these speculations are prohibited, which, they say, the feminine is destructive, dark, gloomy, different from the masculine.

Many European languages ​​even this is not fully understood. In many European languages, the words "man" and "man" are still synonymous. To not go far, look at the Ukrainian language. About English man again silent. Therefore, modern politically correct Western politicians have to express themselves wildly for the Russian hearing: men and women sitting in this room.

That is, from our point of view, it is simply even impolite: why these gender underscores, just “people” can be said, in the end, yes? No, men and women - because they do not have such a common single word.

So she will be called "isha" because she is taken from "isha."

It should be no less interesting.phrase: “And from now on a man will leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife.” Try to look at this phrase through the eyes of a sociologist, anthropologist, ethnographer. Before us is a typical matriarchal formula. That is, the husband leaves his home, his father and mother, and clings to his wife. If the language is a minor one, then it turns out that the wife is a noun, and the husband is an adjective, it is attached to the wife. That is, it is undoubtedly the matriarchal formula. And it is precisely the matriarchal, according to the Bible, that the first model of human society is presented.

So, a wife appears. And after this time, remember the fourth commandment, although it sounds earlier. When God introduces Adam into the Garden of Eden, He says: from every tree that is in heaven, eat, but only from the fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it is forbidden to eat. Now it is worth thinking about the meaning of this most important commandment received by Adam.

First question. Was there evil in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? The answer is negative.It could not be. God did not create death, God does not create evil, and there could be no evil in the Garden of Eden. It is so called in the later memory of people according to the event that happened there. In the Bible it happens repeatedly. And Jacob came to the well of Jacob, to the stone of Jacob. So this stone will be named afterwards, because something happened to Jacob there. And for the narrator, everything is already clear.

Second question. Was this commandment given forever or for a time? Here Gregory the Theologian in the fourth century clearly states with his authority: the commandment is given for a time. What is this commandment? This is the commandment of fasting.

Do you understand? This is not a ban, it is the commandment of fasting. The word “post” can be met by Orthodox people in Synaxar a week Cheese. Statutory preaching reading of the Lenten Triodion on the eve of Lent. So Adam received the commandment of fasting. The fact is that sin is forbidden to us, and we fast from the good. These are different things.

Fasting is a temporary abstention from something good. We cannot fast from murder, but we can fast from milk. That is something that is good in itself, but is considered inappropriate in a particular situation, at such and such a time, and in itself is wonderful.In the same way this post and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The man had to taste this fruit, but first he had to do something. What to do, we'll see later.

Third question. Did man have knowledge of good and evil before sin? Here again, I refer to the authority of John Chrysostom, who rightly said: if Adam did not know what good and evil were before the fall, then sin became for us a teacher of wisdom. Let it not be that!

Man had knowledge of good and evil. Simply in the biblical language, the word "knowledge" has many meanings. There is knowledge as awareness and there is knowledge as complicity. That's when we read that Adam knew his wife Eve, we do not assume that he read a book on gynecology. This is exactly the real connection. So the first person had theoretical knowledge about good and evil.

Oh good. Where do we see it from? The fact is that when the Lord created the whole world, He said:Behold, all that I have created is very good. Good quality is not a category from the ethics textbook. Good quality is a property of being. God is good, the world is good, man is good, and especially when there is no sin in him, man feels this joyful goodness of his.So he had this feeling, there was the knowledge of what is good.

And there was knowledge of what evil is. Indeed, before creating a wife for a man, the Lord said: “It is not good for a man to be alone.” Bad is bad. Here is a rather capacious definition of evil. Separation, opposition - this is from some evil. But the man had no real experience of complicity in the good, much less the real experience in doing evil. This has not happened yet. A theoretical representation was.

And, finally, the most difficult question, on which I do not even hope for your understanding today, but, nevertheless, I will say.

Question: Did Adam have freedom? Before the Fall. Was he free to choose? The answer of the orthodox dogma is very complicated. It sounds like this: Adam did not have free choice, but he had free will, to live in his own way. But where am I? Here comes the question of freedom of choice. Tell me when a person doubles his eyes begins? Freedom of choice implies: either to do it, or it; and it is good and it is not bad. And I think, like Buridan's ass, where to go. Tell me when a person begins to split in the eyes? When he was given a good brain.

So here we are with you, and Adam.And we begin to double our eyes, that will, that bondage - all the same. It means that someone poured us into the eyeballs, and the clarity of the picture decreased, something began to seem to be confused. Before Adam, Adam had no freedom of choice, that is, there were no ghosts of good: it seems that this is not bad, but this also seems to be good, and so on, and it is not clear what to choose. There were no such bends in his world, but there was free will. Freedom to be yourself.

And then comes the usual question: where am I? What, freedom means to be yourself? And where am I? I am so complicated in the current state. Sorry, but each of you is just a parliament of some kind, the Polish Sejm, I would say. Russian parliament is not concerned.

Just imagine, the Seym is sitting, there is one question on the agenda: it was evening, there was nothing to do. And the speaker puts on the agenda: "Comrades, what are we going to do? Shanovni deputies, your propoziiii".

Here the fraction of the head suggests: "Let's go to the library, read books." The fraction of the heart timidly objected: "What library? Why are you? You have books everywhere at home, in the closet a bookcase stands. Maybe we will go to the temple, we pray for once and for all. We will spend the evening in the temple."But the voluminous centrist faction of a single stomach says: "What are you guys? You got me with your spirituality. You look through a notebook, find out who has a birthday today, to whom you should fall for dinner, go to dinner for free." There is also a faction of radical democrats. What she advises at night looking, I generally keep quiet. All factions in parliament are legitimate, all are elected by voters. But sin is born when the demand and supply of a lower fraction is realized through a higher supply. That's when stupidity or sin is born.

So, for a person of any age, any person it is very important to realize: where am I? I am my social image, I am lust, I am my mind, my heart? What really makes me happy? What do I really match my joys and hopes with? That is why for a Christian freedom is loyalty, the opportunity to be faithful to the highest in oneself. Therefore, "know the truth, and the truth will make you free."

So Adam had freedom. But as long as nothing seemed to him, there was no freedom of choice. Woland's philosophy is bad that if there is no shadow, then nothing will be visible, the light will incinerate everything.Bullshit it. Because the good is self-sufficient. Good does not need evil. You see, a mother, when she approaches her baby, she doesn’t make every time a painful choice in the spirit of Dostoevsky, to caress her son or bang her head against the wall. (If positive, self-positive love, then?)

So what happened in Eden? In order to understand this, one must imagine topography, sacral topography. There is land, there is the Garden of Eden, washed by four rivers: the Tigris, the Euphrates, and we do not know the other two rivers. Rivers are mythological. And the event itself takes place on the border of myth and history. Myth in a high sense. The culturology and philosophy of the twentieth century no longer considered the word "myth" a curse. Read Losevskaya "The Dialectic of Myth" and it will be clear why I consider this word possible to use. But in the east of Eden there are two trees - the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Then I will explain the interpretation of these events, which belongs to the mind and pen of Reverend Efrem Sirin. And we must explain the reason for my such affection for this holy author. The fact is that, as Archbishop Filaret (Gumilevsky) wrote in the nineteenth century,The first Russian scholarly researcher of the holy fathers and in the first Russian textbook of patrology, he has a very important phrase there: "The holy fathers, before becoming holy fathers, were people seeking truth."

The question arises, when we read the texts of the holy fathers: where is this minute of transformation? Where did the holy father say something from his head, from the spirit of his culture, school, civilization, and where from God? The Bible is simpler: all Scripture is inspired, amen. And the holy fathers, they can say something from themselves. This is no secret. Orthodoxy never equates holiness with infallibility. The apostles quarreled among themselves: Peter and Paul in Antioch; the saints quarreled among themselves - anything had happened. And from here comes the need for religiously balanced academic theology, in order to understand where the holy fathers have something really sacred, and where that which one can try to understand, kiss, but put aside.

In the case of Ephraim the Syrin, such a limit of the transformation of his mind is very clearly seen in his reflections on the Book of Genesis.

Rev. Ephraim is an unusual person. From his nickname Sirin, you have already understood that he is a Syrian. This is very important for our theology.Most of the holy fathers are Greeks, Romans, and here is a Syrian, a man of a completely different upbringing, culture, language and, most importantly, closer to the Bible. Because it is clear that the ancient Syrian culture in its way of life, the poetics of its thinking is very close to biblical. Here, for example, the Monk Ephraim reflects when the Lord created the world. Date please What day of the week? It would seem a strange question.

Rev. Ephraim explains so.

Look: when the Lord created man on the sixth day of creation, he introduced him into the Garden of Eden and said: taste. So what was in paradise? So, apples should be tasty already. So after the Transfiguration, yes? September, then. So, of course, the new year in September. Indeed, in the ancient church calendar of the new year in September. Question: what September was the world made of?

We look carefully. On the fourth day of creation, the Lord created a great light and a small light, that is, the sun and the moon, and the moon is full, sometimes flawed.

So, the date of creation of the world is well known: three days before the September full moon.Because the moon is created on the fourth day. Hence, the September full moon is the fourth day of creation.

Amazing literalism, captivating by its directness and naivety. Such an amazing anthropocentrism, which is so lacking in modern culture, entangled in its existentialist reflections. This is a joyful feeling of naturalness, that all of us are for the sake of man and ours for the sake of salvation. This feeling was in Reverend Ephraim. Notice the striking literalism of his understanding of the biblical text.

And suddenly a completely different way of thinking on the pages of the same author, dedicated to the story of the Fall. But before expounding his interpretation of this plot, one should try to understand Efrem Sirin himself. We must try to understand how he prayed. Not in the sense of what prayers he read in his cell, but just imagine the worship of this time.

Today, Orthodox Christians in the temple stand still, and even worse for Catholics: everyone is sitting. And in the ancient Christian worship service, Christians went to the temple. There was a spatial dynamics in our worship.

The service began with the fact that Christians gather in the nave of the temple. Pretense is a symbol of the Old Testament.Therefore, the liturgy began in the narthex. The arches were big, not like today - a narrow vestibule. And in this vestibule the beginning of the liturgy was sung.

Until now, our liturgy begins with psalms, chants of the Old Testament: Bless the Lord, O my soul; Praise, O my Lord, Here on the lecternlayGospel, New Testament book. The priest and deacon take the Gospel after reading the psalms and singing the Commandments of bliss, the New Testament sermon, enter the central part of the temple.

The central part of the temple, the meal is the symbol of the New Testament, and the altar is the symbol of the eternal future Kingdom of God. Hence, hence the so-called Small entrance. The term remained with us in the liturgy, and the meaning was lost. We say: "It's time for us to make a Small Entry." In fact, this is the way out. The father and the deacon leave the altar, make a circle and return to the throne.

And in the days of Ephraim Sirin, all this literally happened. It was a small entrance from the porch to the central part. In the center of the temple stood an altar. Today it is a table, which stands to the left of the throne in the altar, and earlier it stood in the center, a large table similar to an eater. Today, people, coming to the temple on the eve, stand at a table there, bring cookies, bread, sugar or something else.

By the way, what do you put on your eve in your lands? Same? There is nothing more delicious or original? It's a pity. Okay.

And so people bring something to the temple and put it on the altar. But on the altar it is necessary to put what is needed in worship. A liturgy needs bread and wine. Today, people buy these products somewhere in stores, and in Syria and in Greece in ancient times, Christians did it all themselves. Everyone has their own homemade wine, like in Georgia today, everyone has their own bread.

People bring these gifts to the temple. Again - how things have changed with us.

Do Orthodox people know the word “prosphora”? The word "prosphora" meansoffering. That is, prosphoraearlierpeople brought to the temple from the house, and today, on the contrary, we take prosphora from the temple. So, people bring their own bread and their wine.

Then everyone understands the rule: for sacrifice, God needs to select the best. The best breads are visible more or less from afar, the most lush, white, without holes, and so on. They took the best bread, we will serve with him.

And with wine? How to identify the best wine? Here, I believe, the golden time was approaching in the deacon's worship service. It was necessary to try and authoritatively father to advise on what to serve today: in the wine Kuzminichna or Ilinichna?

Well, now the fun part.When people brought these gifts to the altar in antiquity, they asked to remember themselves and their loved ones, for whom they sacrifice. That is, the grandmother, for example, herself goes up to the altar, puts bread, a jug with wine, sets and says: Father, it's there for my daughter Marya, grandson Ilya, and so on.

Hence, in our liturgy, until now, after reading the Gospel, a huge number of litasies, petitions for health, for repose — a whole pile up, reading notes, and so on.

So, they came under the commandments of bliss, read the Gospel, and the congregation gather, give their notes, gifts, and so on.

Now, reading the notes with us is a very boring time in worship, but in the Romanian Orthodox Church there is a more ancient custom, more lively. There, the whole village comes to the temple to this very minute, when the liturgy hybrids read notes, they are not interested in anything else, but this is the most important thing. Because the notes are written in a complex way, not like we do: about the health of God's slaves Darya, Thecla, Marya and so on. No, the Romanians are different: “Mary’s servant Mary asks Christ to punish the thief who stole her purse from her last week.”"God's servant Tatiana prays for her daughter to finally marry." That is, all the news of the village can be found at this moment: this is the local radio.

People bring their little notes, gifts. The best is selected and after that the Great Entrance is made. That is, the deacon and the priest select the best wine, pour it into the bowl, take the loaf and go to the holy of holies, to the altar, with these best gifts.

We still have this symbolism: even when the litter prophorus is specially baked, the priest still cuts a lamb out of it. It is a symbol of the fact that all the best and holy is taken, chosen to perform the sacrament. It is brought into the altar.

And the altar is no longer ours, it is already the eternal kingdom of the next century. Then the bread consecrated by eternity will wear out, wear back to people, return to them.

This is what the Reverend Ephraim the Syrin saw and experienced. Such was the dynamically developing liturgy. Hence, his experience of the biblical story will be clear.

According to his understanding, the whole world is a temple. The world around Eden is a side-altar. The Garden of Eden itself is a meal. The whole garden was like a meal, writes Ephraim the Syrian. Meal in the church sense, the main nave, the main space of the temple, where the faithful, the secular priesthood, you - the people of priests.And then the tree of knowledge and the tree of life are the royal gates, behind which is an altar, the holy of holies. Adam and Eve are priests.

The first man as a priest was to offer a sacrifice to the altar, to offer a sacrifice to God. And at the same time he had to go through two trees: the tree of knowledge and the tree of life.

The fact that these two trees are inextricably intertwined with their crowns is already mentioned in the Message of Diognet, this is the beginning of the second century, a Christian monument. There it is affirmed that since knowledge of good is impossible without a good life and life is impossible without the knowledge of the truth, these two trees are one.

So Adam is the priest who was to offer the sacrifice. And instead of a sacrifice occurred abduction. This is the essence of Adam's sin: abduction instead of victim.

Then Efrem Sirin goes further. His thought becomes absolutely astounding, no history can be explained. He says so.

If the garden is like a meal, and in the Garden of Eden every flower has given immortality, then this is a world in which God is everywhere, as in a church. Indeed, in the church, no object is equal to itself. Waterin the templemore than water. Bread on lithium is more than bread. The icon is bigger than the board. Incense is more than resin, and so on.Everything is pervaded by the divine spirit. So it is in the Garden of Eden. All that Adam touched was the sacraments. Everything gave him the joy of God-sharing.

But in the Orthodox Church there are shrines, and there are shrines. This is not the same thing. Any prosforka there at home is a shrine, and communion bread at the altar is a shrine.

Similarly, in the Garden of Eden, according to Ephraim Sirin. And sohe putsThe main question is: “Oh, if Eve had thought, who is in front of her - when she stood in front of the tree of knowledge, is a creature or a Creator?

That is, according to Ephraim Sirin, the tree of knowledge and the tree of life are the Lord Himself. As we commune with Christ under two types: Body and Blood, bread and wine, in the same way the first person had to enter, accept the fruits of the tree of knowledge and the tree of life and become a god. This is the path of deification, so a person should have joined God. Well, now it will be clear what happened and why the consequences of what happened were so terrible.

What Adam commits is the sin of blasphemous theft, an attempt to become a god besides God, an attempt to steal the Holy Gifts.

That is, instead of sacrifice - the priest is a priest, he makes a sacrifice, - instead of sacrifice theft, instead of giving away grasping.

Well, now let's see how it develops. That is, this sin, I would say, of such a technological attitude to the world in the spirit of the industrial imperialism of Western European civilization of the Faustian spirit - the spirit of magic.

As is well known in religious studies, the distinction between magic and religion is precisely according to this criterion: the religious person prays, the sorcerer orders. The sorcerer is convinced of his powers and the power of his spells. So it seemed to Adam that it was possible to perform some kind of action: “I have the right,” to whom God will have to obey.

Now we look at how this story unfolds on the biblical pages. The wife is standing in front of the tree of knowledge. Naturally, the question here is: where is Adam? I have not met with the holy fathers of the answer to this question. Why was the wife at one crucial moment?

In the apocrypha, the answer is: Adam was on a field trip. That is, at this time, the Lord showed Adam other parts of the Garden of Eden, while his wife remained on the farm, and a visiting Caucasian took advantage of this.

The second variant is the interpretation I read in the Jewish rabbinic literature. The rabbinical interpretation assumes that Adam was asleep at this time, because as soon as his wife appeared, Adam and Eve began to fulfill the first commandment, that is, "be fruitful and multiply."And since in this kind of communication a man acts as a donor, the woman is the recipient, the man, having fulfilled his marital duty, falls off and falls asleep. Woman,on the contraryI felt a rush of new power in me, I felt the conception of a new life, and so I went to the most sacred place in the Garden of Eden to try to understand what was happening to it.

Be that as it may, but I say: this is not a patristic interpretation, therefore they cannot be considered ecclesiastical, both these interpretations, and in the Bible, just Eve is one.

And then a serpent appears, who says to her: "Is it true, God told you, that you cannot eat from any tree that is in heaven?" Eve replies that this is not true. From any tree that is in heaven, one can eat, and one cannot touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

By the way, this is the first sin in the history of mankind. It is this response of Eve. Sin is double. Her first sin is that she answered. In such cases it is necessary to shout, but not to answer. Man is a complex being, we have the power of love and the power of hatred. Eros and Thanatos, if to speak the language of Freud.

When a person feels a voice in himself (Woland?), He should be angry, ward off.Hatred is God's gift to man. Hate in our soul performs a function similar to antibodies in the blood. He recognized the infection, attacked and, having devoured it, threw it out. We must be able to be angry with evil thoughts, blasphemous thoughts: it’s not me, I don’t want, I don’t deign.

Saint Theophan the Recluse in the nineteenth century, a Christian girl asked: "Father, how can I fight the prodigalbadthoughts? "replies: "PImagine yourself: you are walking through the city on a dark evening, a thug of some sort attacked you, a crook and grabbed you. What do you do? You have no strength to resist him. But you gather all your strengths into a cam and give him what is in the spirit. ”Here, of course, you are surprised: he advises the girl to give him in the chest, to this thug. Our contemporaries would advise to strike another place. But the gentlemen’s nineteenth century of such things He did not allow it. And further Theophan the Recluse says: “When you give it to the thug in the chest, he will loosen his grip a little, and you scream: guard, rob.In exactly the same way, when blasphemous thoughts attacked you, bad, unclean, remove them from you even for a second and immediately shout: Lord, watch, rob, send me a guardian angel, protect me from this thought. "

But Eve was not angry. After all, the serpent obviously lied that God, he says, has forbidden everything to be, and so on.Instead of driving away this slanderous thought, Eve begins to open a scientific symposium: God said so, God did not say so. That is, it was already some weakness of the volitional beginning.

Eve's second sin was that she reversed God's commandment. God's commandment was: Do not eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. What does Eve say? "Do not touch the tree of knowledge." These are the first words of a woman on earth, according to the Bible, and all the more significant as they turned out to be.

There is an amazing phenomenon of female religiosity. Female religiosity is often more cruel than male religion. Women love to invent for themselves and for those around them the new commandments, the rules: you can’t pass a candle over your left shoulder, you can’t pass in front of an icon, you can’t step on a rug - and you’ve gone. You will not read this in any Law of God, it is only grandmother's academy. Remember, the girls, from the temple, not from the Garden of Eden, but fromOrthodoxtemple of yousurelyexpelled? Who is doing this? Do monks run after you, or what? No, their own comrades on the floor.

So, the first religious act of a woman on earth is God's unauthorized tightening.commandments. And this is very dangerous. Because, by tightening God's commandment, the wife makes herself helpless before the propaganda of Satan.

Imagine this scene as a child. Some pages of the Bible can be useful and childish to imagine.

Here is a tree, suppose it is an apple tree. The tree of knowledge has nothing to do with an apple tree. This is a medieval Latin pun: small and small. Malem is an apple, Malum is evil. But in the Bible, in the Hebrew language there is nothing like that. Well, well, suppose it is an apple tree. Here is a snake wrapped around her, dangles her head and the lady says to him: it is said that if we touch, we will die that day. And the serpent says: fool, look at me, I have not touched anything, I live here - and nothing.

That is, it is precisely the tightening of the commandment that makes this commandment easily attacked and refuted. This often happens in our church pedagogy, when we bring the fear of God to the children, we throw out all these terrible stories: one boy, without asking his grandmother, ate cherry jam and then fell from the ninth floor. Anything, huh? How many such terrible stories we had to listen to in childhood. And then the child is convinced that you can eat cherry jam, and the angels will not incinerate you in Sodom and Gomorrah. And you do not fall from the ninth floor, and you do not break your leg in the cellar. Yeah, grandma lied.And yet your Bible is lying.

Here is what happened with Eve.

The serpent answers: "No, God told untruth, because He knows that if you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will become like gods who know good and evil."

That is, a direct attack, and Eve can not resist. Although there is a clue: you will become like gods who know good and evil. This is the “how” - it is so ambiguous. If we say that Ivan is just like Paul, it means that he is definitely not Paul. If a monkey is just like a human, it means that there is an understanding behind this that the monkey is not exactly human.

But, in addition, there is a remarkable Bolshevik accent in this phrase: you will become aware of good and evil. That is, it means that now you do not know this, but only in the future, when we break through, then you will know the truth. And now you know nothing. That is, it is an axeological nihilism: what you know now is worthless, let's forget everything, erase it, throw it away, and then from scratch "we have ours, we will build a new world."

Eve does not resist. The next phrase in the Bible is amazing.

"And Eve's eyes opened, and she saw that the tree was pleasant in appearance, and its fruits were pleasant to the taste, and it was desirable, for it gives knowledge."

What kind of eyes did Eve have? These were not the eyes of the kitten, that is, the blind kitten was here, and then opened, no. She had a completely different vision. Not the third eye, no. Much worse. She began to look at the world through the eyes of a consumer, a market trader. Before her is the most sacred thing of the universe, and what does she see there? Yeah, packaging wow, yummy, it seems, sweetie, oh, yes, thirdly, desirable, because it gives knowledge.

Just imagine that you come to the communion cup (I again remind you that the tree of knowledge is the cup of communion), partake of the sacrament and say: “Oh, father, you have nothing today, Cagorchik? By the way, You also have a garb, too, father, not Sofrino, yes? They brought it from Greece? Oh yes: I believe, O Lord, for this is Your Body and Your Blood, yes, yes, of course, of course. "

You see, such a vulgar aestheticism, this is a consequence of the disease. And with such an eye of Eve they look at Orthodoxy, very many people look at our shrines.

Because politicians who do not believe in Christ, but believe in Orthodoxy, in Orthodoxy, believe that the Orthodox Church has always cemented our people and something like that.

In the same eye, art critics look who are interested only in color and so on in the icon, what we have already said.

I repeat again: the tree of knowledge is the participle. Before the communion there is no evil, but remember what the Orthodox Christian reads prayers before the communion: "Do not take to judgment or condemnation to me the communion of your Holy Gifts. That is, it appears the communion may be in perdition, the communion is in condemnation. Apostle Paul in general He believed that Christians die for the reason that they unworthily, without reasoning, take Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, not understanding where the profane is, and where the sacred. That's exactly what happened to Eve.

After that, Eva goes to her husband and offers him complicity in her meal. Why is she doing this? I met two interpretations of this plot.

The first is the thought of Efrem Sirin. Sorry, no, first I’ll say about rabbi.

In rabbinic literature, the idea is as follows. Eve felt that she was dying, and then her mind was burned by a terrible thought: she would die, and Adam would live, and God would give him a new wife, and he would be happy with her. Let it not, eat, dear.

In order to understand the whole truthfulness and depth of this rabbinic thought, we just need to remember that according to the Talmud, Eve is the second wife of Adam, and not the first. The first was the mythological character Lilith.It is not in the Bible, but it appears in the Talmud. Archangel Michael fell in love with Lilith, she persuaded him to reveal to her the tetragrammaton, the sacred name of God, Jehovah, and when she recognized him, the Lord did not tolerate it. He could not agree that there was a man on earth who would know His name and have power over him. And so he turned Lilith into a Hell-star - Venus.

That is, this Jewish tradition was, and hence the continuation is clear that Eve is the second wife, afraid that a third one will appear. The rabbis demonstrate profound knowledge of female psychology.

As for the patristic tradition, here in Efrem Sirin there is exactly the opposite interpretation of this place.

The Monk Ephraim believes that when his wife departed from the tree of knowledge, she felt a surge of euphoria in herself. This happens when a person commits a serious sin, he feels the flight: I could, I overcame, I am not a trembling creature, I have the right. And so she went to her husband to boast: look, I started my career with your rib, and now I am a goddess, but you still - don’t understand what it is.

Here is the oneoriginalthe matriarchal formula breaks down here. Instead of a union of love, even matriarchal, pride and exaltation, a sense of exaltation of one person over another, are born, and therefore at the end of the story of the fall we see the opposite patriarchal formula, that is, the first again became the last.

At the end of the story of the fall we readconvertsto the wife the words of the Lord: "From now on, your desire will be your husband, and he will have dominion over you."

In the meantime, Eva joyful goes to Adam, offers him complicity in the meal, he agrees. Then again: “And their eyes opened (the second time). Their eyes opened, and they saw that they were naked, and they were ashamed. ”

What kind of eyes have they opened? What nudity?

They simply lost the mind of Christ, in the New Testament the so-called gift of perspicacity, the gift of grace-filled vision, a substantium of eternitatis, under the sign of eternity.

They saw each other's nudity. Up to this time, before sin, they had clothes of light in the sense that man and God were not separated, therefore the clothes of grace enveloped them. Now they have renounced God, refused and remained just people.

A normal person is a person plus God.But now this plus is removed, the person remains just a man. Only by man.

And here they see each other in this too human nudity and are ashamed.

A very important testimony in the Bible. Note: God has not punished anyone yet, has not cursed anyone, has not said a bad word to anyone, but it is already bad for people - they are ashamed of each other.

For the wonderful word of John of the Ladder, the holy sixth century, love knows no shame. Indeed, close people are not ashamed of their nudity. And on the contrary, where there is a need for clothes, for girdings, this is already some kind of estrangement of people from each other.

Already from this page of the Bible begins the path into that impasse where Sartre will say: hell is another. Another who is always with me and looks at me. After that, they make themselves girdles of some leaves.

Then the next stage: Adam hears the voice of God walking in paradise. Also very important detail. God now ceases to sound within the heart of Adam, God becomes something alien and distant, sounding there in the gardens.

Plus, there is a wonderful expression in the Bible: in the cool of half a day, it turns out, God walks.For us, this does not mean anything special, but just remember that the biblical author lives in the south. What is the coolness at noon that was formed? In the Middle East? In Israel or Mesopotamia? The Italians have a saying that in the siesta, that is, at noon, only dogs and Englishmen can be found on the streets. Well, Adam now sees God in the cool of half a day.

That is, there is already some strangeness in his perception, but even more strangeness afterwards: Adam hides under the bushes, hearing the voice of God.

Now this is undoubtedly the smile of the biblical author.

You see, I always remember the words of my Old Testament teacher at a Moscow seminary. He told us that the original and the translation are similar to the carpet from the front side and from the inside: the drawing is the same - the colors are different. And especially when it comes to Church Slavonic translation of the Bible. Church Slavonic language is inherently vyskotrozhestven. And therefore, a person who hears the Bible only in Church Slavonic does not feel the diversity of styles of biblical stories. Everything's there. There are solemn pages, there are prose, there are feuilleton, there are pamphlet, there are godless and so on - everything is in the Bible.And here there is a place for a smile.

The first smile in the Bible is the words: "... they saw that they were naked." The fact is that in the Hebrew language it is a frank play on words:Arum - wiseanderum - naked. And given that the Hebrew language is consonant, only consonants are written, and vowels are not written, then, in writing, these are complete homonyms:rm. Accordingly, people wanted to become arumi - wise men, became erumi - naked.

For the Jewish reader here is a reason to smile.

The second smile is right here. Adam hides from God under a bush. Yes, Adam, great wisdom the serpent whispered to you. Only great initiates, in the thirty-third degree of initiation, can know this: hide from God under the bushes - they will not find you there. Great wisdom, of course.

That is, you see, a split begins in Adam. Irenaeus of Lyons said that death is a split. And the split begins immediately.

The split between people: they feel each other's strangers. It is very interesting. The fact is that it often seems as if a jointly committed sin unites. Actually shares. In the old monastic book, in Paterik, there is such a story. Once a week a monk came from his monastery.By the way, do you know the word “skit”? Can you guess or not? No, a skit is not a wander. I'll give you a hint: this is not a Slavic word at all, it is Egyptian: shechit, not a martyr, although maybe there is a connection.Shehitmeansheart weighing. That is the place where the heart is weighed. This is the name of the area in Egypt.

So here. From his skete, this Egyptian monk once a month came to the village and there he changed his baskets, which he wove, for bread. He comes once, and the mistress of the house is alone, the husband has left. And then he begins to struggle, and he begins to pester this mistress: well, come on quickly, while her husband is not. A woman turns out to be harder in faith and in commandments than this monk excuses, but she has a few strengths, and a strong monk, she tries this way and that, and he, as an infection, sticks to everything. And here at the crucial moment a husband really appears. From the window you can see far. Well, of course, all the fervor of the monk passes, everything is fine. And here this woman says to the monk: “You see, it’s so good that I didn’t give in to you, but otherwise we would have committed a sin and would have been sitting apart.”

The last piece of the phrase is especially precious. It is very accurate that a perfect sin really does not connect, but divides people, and this is clearly seen in the example of Adam and Eve.

Although I say again: their sin wasCompletly notin that they entered into sex. Not this sin in any way.

Then the second split: in a relationship with God, God seems like something alien.

And the third split: in a relationship with oneself. Reason and feelings have diverged so much that, obeying their feelings, Adam becomes capable of doing very strange things - that is, hiding from God under a bush.

The Lord addresses: "Adam, where are you?" And then he asks Adam: "Why are you under a bush?" - "I'm hiding because I'm naked." God asks: "And who told you that you were naked?" Here it turns out what happened.

Note: God does not accuse Adam, He gives him a chance to tell, repent. Adam refuses this chance.

His answer is: "The wife you gave me gavethe fruit, and I ate. "Here is the first informer in history. At the same time, the very psychology of Adam is striking. That is, it feels like he has no right to say no: once you have made an offer, you have to agree.

God turns to Eve, she dumps on a snake: the serpent gave, she ate. God does not speak to the serpent.

Please note: God begins his conversation with the one who committed sin after all, and therefore, the least guilty, that is, it is easier for him to repent and give others an example of repentance. But this is not happening.

God does not speak with the serpent, their relationship has been clarified long before this story, there cannot be repentance.

Here after that the sentence follows.

Turning to her husband, the Lord says that "you will till the soil sweep the earth." Now this work appears. The sin was that the man refused to work, and now he will have to work.

To my wife is a special punishment: “... in torment you will have children”, and nevertheless: “... your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you”.

And finally, this story ends with an episode, which in theology is called the Proto-Gospel, the first Gospel.It will be said to Adam, the wife, about the serpent that will be told that the seed of the wife will strike you in the head, and you will sting him on the heel. This is said to the serpent about the seed of the wife.

The wife has no seed, because it is perceived as a prophecy about the virgin birth of Christ without an earthly father. Accordingly, the relationship of the seed of the wife and the serpent is just such. Christ crushes the power of Satan, but not without loss from his side, that is, all the same - and Christ himself had to redeem himself through death.

However, the biblical account of the Fall ends with such a note of prophecy, a note of joy, hope and promise.This means one thing: God did not turn away from man, God knows how to endure our failures, and therefore man has hope that God is Love.

One of the meanings that we derive in general from this story is that man is responsible for his own destiny, for the fate of the entire universe. "Cursed is the earth for you." This is a phrase of human environmental responsibility. "She will give you thistles and thorns." A person has no right, unlike a pagan, to write off a catastrophe for the war of the gods among themselves, for some kind of pre-human catastrophes in the history of the universe. Man is the key point of world history. And therefore, later in the New Testament epistles it will be said that "the whole creature is still tormented and groaning, awaiting the revelation of the sons of men, for the creature did not submit by its own will to vanity, but by the will of its subjugate."

That is, in front of us is a frank cosmodice. Yes, it is difficult to live in the world, but not the world is to blame. And therefore, the world should not be blasphemed, destroyed, but it is necessary to transform a person himself, to learn to be the master of his heart and his feelings. This is the main lesson that the Church takes from the biblical account of the fall of man.